noiseman433

Zine World #28 will be released at the end of January.

This issue should have been out months ago but has been delayed repeatedly for a number of reasons. Because all the content in this issue was collected and written in the summer and early fall of 2009, we are giving ourselves the rest of this month to update it a bit. We're writing some new reviews and we'll be expanding the review section.

We'd like your help in pulling together updates for some of the other sections. If you have something you'd like to contribute, please email it to jerianne at undergroundpress.org no later than January 15. Please send us your:
* address changes
* classified ads for zines, distros, or DIY projects (50 words or less)
* display ads (see our ad rates)
* new listings for zine review zines/website or zine libraries
* listings for zine events happening in the first half of 2010
* your stories, comments, or feedback about zine events that happened in 2009
* listings for zine resources, postal tips, etc.

See you in your mailbox soon!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/gG25oLhlx8o/game-themed-cupcake.html

Wil Wheaton points out this severely awesome game-themed cupcake quiz. How many can you get right?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/QPAsiVKqdSA/diy-mosquito-killing.html

A useful mosquito killing device by Johannes Vogl.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/FW2iK1FYM8U/launching-a-christma.html

Gareth of Make Online says: "Oh my gawd, this is hysterical. These guys launched their Christmas tree on 32 rocket engines. The launch is glorious."

Сегодня нашел такой сайтег шпион одноклассников и натурально прихуел. Уверен, что сайт скоро прикроют и программистов Одноклассников, которые допустили такую хрень уволят или хорошенько поимеют.
Сайт, конечно, бесполезный для меня (я слежкой не страдаю), но по сути открывает возможности читать любые сообщения любого юзера в Одноклассниках.
Для примера я заглянул в сообщения своей верной подруги и вот это сообщение мне не порадовало от тебя, Лена (и чего же я такого не узнал?)

Had a fun new year's show with the group Raise the Rusty Blade. Here's a video of our performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J71XTUexGF8 While not directly drawing from the mythos, readers of H.P. Lovecraft and lovers cheesy horror films will enjoy the performance ^_^

To be honest, I did feel a bit self-conscious. Not surprisingly, a goth crowd does not find a group of individuals satirizing horror and dark themes to be all that amusing ^_^

We've decided to put together a recording compiling various recordings we've made over the couple years the group has performed. There are plans for it to be released as a CD-R with semi-ambitious artwork depicting each member of the collective past and present and a zine illustrating one of D'Lanor's horrifying tales.

School has started! I've not a sense of what kinds of activities these classes will require. I'm hoping for open-ended projects and coding assignments. It's hard to believe that this will be my final semester. I imagine it will feel strange and anticlimactic to graduate, especially considering that I won't have an accompanying career transition right away. That will have to wait for August and our move from Gainesville.

My goals for this semester: see a doctor about my persistent congestion and sleeping issues, manage my stress, finish up the Raise the Rusty Blade release, and begin working with local percussionists and musicians to bring forth a new structured/rhythmic performance group.

A couple songs available for free download exclusively for people who choose to sign up for the mailing list! And note that you can share the widget on your own pages!

A surprisingly tasty dish:



More info and recipe here.

(The walnut & beet salad, also yummy, is here.)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/2KikII4VuDE/hoof-shoes.html

Hoof shoes from Zagone Studios

Turns out hoof shoes are making a comeback, but for humans. More examples: A Closer Look At The Hoof Shoe Trend: 5 Fashionable Or Freaky Hooves. My faves are the deer ones.

X-posted from my book blog

OK, so Peter Pan was my first obsession. I read the story as a little girl, watched the Disney film, listened to the story on tape, dreamt about flying away with and being rescued by a charming boy with no fear, who would never grow old. I loved it and continue to love it in all its forms.

Now, the artist Brom has recreated it in The Child Thief. In his characteristic fashion, Brom is lending his own personal touch of horror to the old story. There is no Neverland, no pixie dust, no play-fights, no colorful Captain Hook.

This is a world as dark and dangerous as our own. But also just as fascinating. I'm looking forward to more.

UPDATE, 9/19/2009: I am about halfway through the novel now and it is an interesting take on the Peter Pan story. I admit, however, that it is not entirely what I expected. Brom has taken great pains to show a dichotomy in Peter. He is two things at once: he is aging slowly but he will never reach puberty, not really. So he alternates between being a carefree, playful boy one moment and a cold-blooded killer the next. He has all the capabilities of a man but none of the maturity that goes along with them. All of his dark experiences have been in Avalon, unlikes some of the children that he brings there. Some of those kids were forced to "grow up" early, at least in the light of the things they have gone through. I was expecting a darker, more grown-up Peter, to be honest. This is interesting, like I said, but not really what I expected.

Also, I am contemplating reading the book twice. Once through to just read it and the second time to edit it. Apparently neither Brom nor his editor believe in using commas BEFORE nouns of direct address (he writes: Why Lady, would you do such a thing? instead of Why, Lady, would you do such a thing?). If it were once, then I wouldn't worry but it's a constant, annoying occurence. So I am tempted to take a red pen to the novel and then send it back to Brom with a note saying, "You may want to hire me. Obviously, I can be of help."  :-)

I will let you know when I am done with the book. :-) We're about to go into battle, both figuratively and literally.

UPDATE, 11/28/2009: OK, I just want to be done with this book. I cannot honestly say that I think it is any good. Not yet. It makes certain characters more pitiable than in the stories we are used to, which is interesting. But then Brom just kills off characters that we have come to enjoy in fell swoop. It's a bit annoying and I feel like I'm waiting and waiting for certain things to come to fruition. I just want to be done but it's like I don't want to read it any more, you know?

I think it's part and parcel because I expected something very different. The story is different, interesting in parts, but I do not find it engrossing, like The Plucker, unfortunately.

FRUSTRATED, 12/6/2009: I gave up. I tried to finish the book the other night and just couldn't do it. I think Brom tried to teach his pony too many tricks and its legs just became all tangled and the show was a flop. It's rare that I can't bring myself to finish a book - and maybe I'll go back and try sometime - but, for right now, I just can't do it. I'm moving on to something else because I'm depressed now.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/kzKgTitO_z8/cocaine-vaccine-lead.html

PopSci: "TA-CD works by preventing cocaine from entering the brain, thus stopping the user from getting high. It does not, however, stop cravings, leading some test participants who received the vaccine to take 10 times as much cocaine in the hopes of overriding the vaccine and getting high, or to bankrupt themselves while trying to do so."

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/HWWtexvuKgM/super-mario-blocks-c.html

DannySP's Super Mario Blocks computer icons are very cute.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/IQfjblZu0uU/does-noise-help-or-h.html

For years, I've thought that low-level background noise can actually help concentration. Bart Kosko talks about this notion in his book Noise. There's also recent research suggesting that noise can improve cognitive performance in children with ADHD. However, physiologist Mark Andrews of the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine writes in the new issue of Scientific American Mind that noise can lead to stress which actually impairs learning and memory. Bottom line? When it comes to noise, YMMV. From SciAm:

Several studies have indicated that stress resulting from ongoing white noise can induce the release of cortisol, a hormone that helps to restore homeostasis in the body after a bad experience. Excess cortisol impairs function in the prefrontal cortex—an emotional learning center that helps to regulate “executive” functions such as planning, reasoning and impulse control. Some recent evidence indicates that the prefrontal cortex also stores short-term memories. Changes to this region, therefore, may disrupt a person’s capacity to think clearly and to retain information.

"How does background noise affect our concentration?" (Thanks, Marina Gorbis!)

 

...can you guess which?? ;)

Sign listing the variety of services offered at a nail salon-type place at some shopping complex in Fremont, CA. 

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/pHG2HnTJT0Q/the-ascendancy-of-th.html

OK, I lied about no more wonky posts. Xeni's Facebook post reminded me of something. I want to float an idea about privacy as a commodity, vs. privacy as a right.

Tiger Woods, described frequently as a "very private" person, was unable to keep his private life private. Why? Because he interacted with non-private people. The reason Kim Kardashian and the Jersey Shore denizens have risen to positions of prominence in popular culture is because they each epitomize the non-private person. They have nothing to hide, so nothing that becomes public knowledge can hurt them. Ms. Kardashian can be urinated on in a sex tape and actually be helped in terms of being a public figure. My own ability to be effective as a transgender rights activist is because there's nothing anyone could expose about me that would deter me from my activism. That gives me enormous power over anonymous haters who vent their impotent fury at me to no avail. Their own fear of exposure (loss of privacy) is their greatest weakness. What does this mean for you, dear reader? Read on.

(images via WikiMedia Commons)

Although the US government has taken steps to protect privacy as a right since Louis Brandeis formalized the concept in 1890, there is always a clash with commercial interests who view privacy as a commodity. What we have seen is that those who want privacy are going to have to pay a lot for it, a trend that will continue to trickle down from public figures to the general public. Gated "communities," "identity theft protection" rackets, etc. are symptoms of the commodification of privacy.

At last year's Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, there was a lot of debate about industry self-regulation vs. government regulation. "Wireless Advertising Messaging" (WAM) is something you'll be hearing a lot more about in coming years. The Nexus phone introduced yesterday is the clearest sign that marketers know that the future of advertising is on the mobile web and through local search. Heng Xu, John Bagby, and Terence Melonas of Penn State presented a paper at PETS on whether Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPP) compliance should be by policy or by design. This great theoretical paper lays out a good summary of the right vs. commodity debate:

"The first camp views privacy as a fundamental human right, like the right to liberty or life. Such fundamentalist position holds that privacy is tied to a cluster of rights, such as autonomy and dignity. The second camp holds privacy to be of instrumental rather than fundamental right; that is, the value of privacy comes because it sustains, promotes, and protects other things we value. In this view, privacy can be traded off because doing so will promote other values (e.g., personalization)."

The question then becomes this: what is the value of our privacy, and for what are we willing to trade our privacy? What will we pay to keep it? We are already seeing a cottage industry for people who pay to DELETE F***ING EVERYTHING, such as Web 2.0 Suicide Machine and Seppukoo.com. Both were blocked by Facebook this week for violating their terms of service. This arms race is going to escalate as businesses continue to maximize effectiveness of their messaging through more and more personalized messages and technologies. The amount of money at stake is enormous, which means the rights at stake are enormous as well.

Short of going off the grid, what do you think we should do to protect our right to privacy? Or if you see it as a commodity, what can we do to maximize its value so we can make more in trade (vs. bartering it to businesses like Facebook in exchange for using their service)?

Hey all! My name is Jay and I'm currently a lead guitarist looking for a drummer for my newly formed band, Big Brother Muscle, here in Chicago.

www.myspace.com/bigbrothermuscle

The band consists of myself and my bass player so far. We've written roughly about 15-20 songs within the past few months and are currently getting things moving. We both played in a band called The Code Kids, and now we are looking to do something much more energetic and heavier.

Our influences include ZZ Top, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears, The Screaming Blue Messiahs, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The White Stripes, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Okkervil River, A Place To Bury Strangers and countless others. Basically we want anyone who wants to rock out hard, have a great time and offer an opinion in both songwriting and musicianship.

If this conflicts with the community guidelines, I apologize. If there are any drummers in Chicago looking for a band, definitely check us out and see what you think. Demos are a bit crappy, but what band's demos starting out aren't the best?

Rock on!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/sPu5oakdZ4M/robotic-snake-takes.html

It's almost creepy to watch.

For comparison's sake, there's a video of a real meat-based grass snake swimming in a pool after the cut.

(Thanks, Hugh Clare!)